Going from horizontal to vertical is the hardest part of my day. Each morning, every fibre and sinew of my long, ailing, ridiculous body are rocked by dawn’s arrival. My eyelids lift with the weight of Cold War-era blast doors. My ball-and-socket joints crack and pop like bacon in a hot pan. I engage the bedside table in a messy fistfight as I try to stop that bloody Apple alarm from screaming in my ear.

Such hate. Such reckless hate for a time that heralds the arrival of a new day—a day to be conquered, a 14-to-18-hour period of incomprehensible opportunity, a window to rejoice in the absurdity of the human experience. And yet, such is my passionate disdain for waking up, there are very few things in this world that motivate me to get out of bed any time before 9 a.m.

The last time I pirouetted out of bed with any degree of energy—above that of, say, a recently bereaved, arthritic sloth—was in December 1997.

The Nintendo 64—the ninth-greatest video game console of all time—was high on my Christmas wish list. My goodness, did the big red guy deliver. All 64 bits of Japanese gaming euphoria arrived down the chimney, along with Pierce Brosnan’s incredibly handsome ‘90s head printed on a Goldeneye cartridge.

To quote The Simpsons: it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

Fast-forward nearly three meaningless decades, and I find myself in the Dolomites, the fourth layer of our Russian Doll of travels in 2024. My wife, chief plotter of this layer, has been gaslighting me for nearly a week. She tells me that Tre Cime di Lavaredo is one of the world’s great day hikes. She tells me that to do it, we need only stay overnight in a car park without toilets or showers. She tells me that the toll road to get there is a ‘mere’ €90—or €120, depending on which corner of the internet you believe. She assures me beyond all doubt that waking up at sunrise for this hike will be worth it. I yield. She prepares overnight oats.

The road is guarded by two Italian toll keepers. They dwell in the booths at the foot of the road between Lago di Misurina and Rifugio Auronzo. The booths are operated with a comforting, authentic heartbeat of chaos, befitting the suite of 1* Google reviews. Nobody knows what is going on. Nobody knows if they will make it past. Everybody is shouting.

Miraculously, we made it through. My wife was driving the campervan—a strategic move that, I believe, paid off when we were waved on for the peculiar price of €37.50.

Our early arrival gave us our choice of parking spots at Parcheggio Auronzo. I fetched a Birra Ichnusa from the fridge and erected a camping chair with great haste. We marvelled at the view and the sunset. My fear of the morning dissipated. I fetched my favourite Japanese piece of tech—all 48 megapixels of it—and went full 00-agent.